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I hate to have to choose Not Recommended for my review as DD2 really isn't a bad game. The problem lies in the fact that it isn't a sequel to Darkest Dungeon, and anyone who is a fan of the first game won't find much here that they will be excited about. They really should have avoided marketing this as a direct sequel as nothing about this game feels like a sequel, it feels like an experimental ancillary project using the Darkest Dungeon IP.
Does this mean its a bad game? No, it really is a pretty decent and fun game, they've attempted to refine the dungeon crawling/combat formula into a more bite-sized format that would be more appealing to those who don't enjoy the intensive micromanagement of the original. Overall, they were fairly successful, a single journey doesn't take much time from set-up to end, and since you carry nothing to the next playthrough other than earned candles(used for permanent upgrades and unlocks) and hero skill/story progression, a full loss doesn't feel like a set-back.
The negative aspects of DD2 likewise stem from that same refinement and tightening. Because so much relies on RNG, there is almost no way ensure consistency in anything. One of the overarching goals in the original DD was building up your town and supplies so that every expedition was building off of the last and ensuring that you could keep carrying that momentum forward even in the event of complete disaster. There is almost no consistency in DD2, you start with no trinkets and no stagecoach items (unless you spend an ever increasing amount of candles for a random one). This might seem like a good way to force a player out of a rut of trying the same thing over-and-over again, except as mentioned before you have to spend your limited resources to upgrade heroes, and unlocking a hero's skills involves visiting hero shrines, which are randomly generated in an area and even with the best luck will still require multiple runs just to fully unlock one hero's full skills. This means you end up feeling railroaded into using the same characters if you want to make any progress, which means you are stuck using the same team, again, and again, and again. Unless you want to try a new comp, in which case you get to do the same run you've already done 50 times to build up those heroes to see if it's even worth your time to try and run them.
The variety in gameplay suffers heavily from the new tightened scope as well. I hope you enjoy fighting heretics and brigands over and over again under the exact same circumstances, because that's all you're going to see until you beat the path boss and unlock to the next path, where you get two whole new addtional areas where absolutely nothing is different other than aesthetics and a slight flavour change. The area bosses aren't even interesting, they usually have one gimmick and either you are prepared for it and know you can win, or you avoid it so you don't dumpster an entire run for (frankly) some useless currency, garbage random trinkets, and a boss trophy that you may not even be able make use of. All of which are going to disappear at the end of that run anyways, so why even bother?
The combat has been tightened as well, but remains mostly the same from the first. However, just like everything else it both benefits and suffers from this. Some heroes have been completely reworked, while others are almost entirely the same. The highwayman is the reliable workhorse he was in the first game; while the Vestal has been turned into a gimmicky nightmare that can't fill any support/frontline/healer role consistently as all her abilities now have cooldowns or conditions that are required to be met before they can be used (For example: She can't heal until someone reaches 25% hp, 33% when upgraded), ensuring you can never reliably respond to anything during a fight that isn't going how you planned. The "Mark" mechanic has been changed to "Combo" now with certain skills getting buffs/extra effects against "Combo'd" enemies, but applying combo is now tied to RNG for most skills or requires you sacrifice a more useful skill to apply it consistently, for little gain usually. A consequence of the trinkets and consumables you find being random is that there is no consistent way to control the speed/turn order of your team meaning any attempt to have a set'em up and knock'em down style party is just frustrating and usually pointless when you realise just having a party where everyone does their own thing and only synergizes if an opportunity presents itself is the more reliable option.
The relationship mechanic is interesting in theory, in practice it's just another form of RNG that you can exert some control over and ultimately only serves as another way to dumpster a run early-on as it can render an entire party comp dead in the water as it randomly selects a skill from both affected heroes, locks that skill to their bar and then inflicts a negative debuff on the opposing hero anytime that skill is used. Meaning what little skill synergy's or supports you use are now entirely useless. Want to strip that enemy's buffs so your Highwayman can land a crit? Go ahead, but now that debuff skill inflicts blind on your frontliner, which can be cleared by another skill but THAT inflicts vulnerable on your weakest party member who can be healed so long as you are ok with that inflicting weakness on your highwayman.
In spite of it's flaws, Darkest Dungeon 2 is still a solid game, but if you are a fan of the original you will most likely end up feeling like DD2 is watered down, shallow, and ultimately an unsatisfying sequel.